Wracked with angst over the fate of our beloved and horribly misgoverned Republic, the DiploMad returns to do battle on the world wide web, swearing death to political correctness, and pulling no punches.

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This has gotten completely out of control. I never thought I would see our country's politics reduced to the degrading levels of a Banan...

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Ariel Sharon, RIP

Ariel Sharon.

He seemed something from another age. Farmer, scholar, warrior, democrat, politician, diplomat--and fervent admirer and friend of the United States. He showed himself a brilliant military officer who hated war and the military bureaucracy; instead of just chaffing under and grumbling about orders he considered not reflecting the reality of the situation on the ground, he acted in what he saw as the best interests of his mission and his men. The buck stopped with him, and he never tried to dodge or pass that buck.

His crossing of the Suez in the grim days of the 1973 war was a masterpiece of maneuver and envelopment. He neutralized Egypt's Third Army and was on his way to Cairo before the Egyptians, his own bureaucracy, or the USA could react. Kissinger eventually prevailed on the Israelis to stop him. His defeat of the Egyptians convinced Sadat to make peace with Israel in an arrangement that survived until the advent of the Obama misadministration.

He was born, lived and died in Palestine/Israel--more, I note, than Cairo-born Yasser Arafat, who died in France, could claim. He was a fighter who died as he probably never thought he would, in a hospital bed, felled by a stroke.

One of a kind. Israel could use him now, but as Rumsfeld said "you with what you have...". I'm sure when Caesar, Lincoln, Churchill passed it was said his like would be seen again which is true, but when Fate shakes the can of dice others will roll out and what will they be, saviours, warriors, traitors, fools, who knows but they will come. Go Arik and find your vineyard you've done your job.

Arkie on a medical side note, you may like this:http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/01/12/ersatz/

Admittedly I read for a steg knowing I've "seen you" other places. I did not read the comments & my search engine result came up titled, "Belmont Club" on which I made an assumption - I know what the article says, I've heard the sentiment most my life but I can't fathom James, I'm not somehow missing something.

My dia-rider-tag was this: Alpha One Foxtrot Five Tango Four Alpha Echo Six Two Bravo. If question - SpookNate.

In return for its support in the healthcare reform battle, President Obama offered the insurance industry the graceful exit strategy it so desperately needed. Under Obamacare, for at least a few years the insurers hope to get One Last Windfall – namely, profits from the influx of previously-uninsured Americans whose premiums will be paid, or at least subsidized, by taxpayers. Here, the insurers are relying on the likelihood that the inflow of new premiums will, for a year or two at least, greatly outweigh the outflow of money they will have to spend caring for these new subscribers. Obviously, they will use every trick in their well-worn book to stave off expenditures for these new subscribers for as long as they can, but if they actually knew how to avoid paying healthcare costs indefinitely, they wouldn’t be seeking a government bail-out today. In any case, an inflow of new subscribers will be a very temporary source of profit for insurers. Hence, at best it is One Last Windfall.

What happens to the insurers after they exhaust this last windfall is still up in the air. Obamacare may, of course, eventually transition to a single-payer system, an outcome which many conservatives desperately fear, and many liberals fervently desire.?

We may see another Sharon one day out of sheer necessity for Israel's survival but it may be hard to tell as long as The Bastard occupies the White House. In my prior life, I had two business colleagues that served under Sharon during the 1973 war. Both spoke highly of him.

He gave me a bit of hope for that region. I was really sad when he went into a coma.A quote from him had originally gotten me to thinking about how inhumane our 'humanitarianism' has become. As a culture, we seem to believe that we have "nerf'ed" the consequences of losing a war. But instead the UN puts people in camps that become permanent ghettos, or perhaps better described as 'jails'.Then liberals look at the old testament and blither things like: "What... they put every man, woman, and child to the sword, how brutal?" as though consigning them to the perdition that is permanent refugee camps is just wayyy better.Meanwhile Israel's surrounding countries keep punishing the inhabitants of these camps for arab aggression many decades ago.

I could perhaps understand Buddhist monks in the Arakan State of Burma or southern Thailand ranting against Muslims and calling on their co-religionists to counterattack. As for Sri Lanka, though, the Muslim community is small and has not caused trouble.

And this leads to another issue: the ugly side of the Buddhist religion.

In Taiwan, I've participated in Christian worship alongside people who had kinfolk murdered by the Boxers back in 1900 (we hear about the Western missionaries killed, but the Chinese Christians suffered a lot more)--and the Boxers couched their ideology in Buddhist terms.

Even in literature, the Buddhists can be nasty. Take a look at Wu Cheng'en's _Xi You Ji_ (西游记), parts of which were translated by Arthur Waley in a book entitled _Monkey_ (after the protagonist, Sun Wukong), and you'll see the Daoists disparaged all over the place. (BTW, on a tangent, the characters of the Japanese Dragonball Z are largely based on those from Xi You Ji, and some of the episodes loosely based on the Chinese novel).

In Thailand, I will readily grant that they have a high glass ceiling for religious minorities, and note that they've even had a Muslim PM, Christian and Muslim generals, so I will not knock Thailand, and will add that in the problems with Muslim separatists in the south of that country, my sympathies are very much with the Royal Thai Government and its loyal subjects regardless of religion. This is largely because back in the Cold War, the Thai and Malaysian governments were generally pretty solicitous for the well-being of Malay Muslims in S. Thailand and the small ethnic Thai Buddhist community in the northern tier of West Malaysian states; and while I've seen countries that can be nasty to their minorities, Thailand doesn't rank among the worst offenders. Having heard the Azzan in numerous parts of Thailand, dealt with Muslims in that country, and seen different groups working together there, I think those who have sparked the troubles in Pattani and Naratiwat are simply troublemakers.

This being said, I've heard some very disparaging things said by Torawadee Thai Buddhists about Mahayana Chinese Buddhists. So, don't buy it when they say that the eastern religions are "tolerant".

However, the Hindu Tamils of Sri Lanka would have some unhappy tales to tell you about Buddhism; as would Christians of Jingpho, Karen, and Chin ethnicities from Burma/Myanmar.

Getting back to Sri Lanka, much of the trouble they had with the Tamils was precisely over the "Buddhization" and "Sinhala-zation" of Sri Lankan public life not too long after independence. Given that the Tamil Hindus (to say nothing of a noticeable Christian community) were part of the country, they could not be expected to be happy about that state of affairs. Similarly, in Burma, U Nu's "Buddhist Socialism" was a great way to alienate the minority communities--and things didn't change under either Ne Win or the junta.

About Me

W. Lewis Amselem, long time US Foreign Service Officer; now retired; served all over the world and under all sorts of conditions. Convinced the State Department needs to be drastically slashed and reformed so that it will no longer pose a threat to the national interests of the United States.